Christmas is a time for generosity and celebration. But if you don't just want to spend and eat too much, there are ways you can help your fellow human beings.

And often the best way to help in a meaningful and practical way is to make a donation to a foodbank. After all, it's only a few extra items in your supermarket trolley. Often, you can leave them in a box by the tills.

The staples of a food bank's standard food parcel are tins and dried food – many a grateful recipient is given pasta and canned tomatoes to see them through the emergency situation where they have no money and no food for the foreseeable future.

But there are also items that are equally as important but perhaps not donated as often.

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Behind the scenes at a Cardiff Food Bank

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When film director Ken Loach wrote I, Daniel Blake, he wanted to show the realities of food banks.

Among the most shocking scenes in the film is when a young mum goes into one and is so hungry she can't stop herself eating baked beans from a can.

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During that visit - filmed in a real food bank with real volunteers - she asks for sanitary products but doesn't receive any because people don't donate them. That ends up with her shoplifting them, and falling prey to a security guard who recruits for a local brothel.

A scene from Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake

The film's researchers were painstaking in their research, so such scenes won't have gone unseen by volunteers at food banks.

Many are run by the Trussell Trust, which has compiled a list of the things that its food banks really need.

"Alongside the standard food parcel, food banks try to provide the following essential non-food items to adults and children in crisis, helping them maintain dignity and feel human again," a spokesman said.